


Hell Bound

by arysthaeniru



Series: the city is an abyss [3]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen, Swearing, death of some minor dude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2428313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every death is a stain upon his soul and with every death, the cloth becomes darker and redder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell Bound

With a small lunge forward, to avoid the large flying fists headed in his direction, Jackal slipped the knife into the man’s heart, softly and sweetly. The knife met with a little resistance at first, but Jackal twisted it and it slid through the man’s ribcage and into his heart. The man started to cough up blood and slid to the ground, looking quite surprised. Jackal followed the man to the ground, until he was kneeling over the other man’s body. The light died in the man’s eyes and Jackal reached forward to close them, as was custom.

He murmured a small prayer in his native tongue, as he pulled out an old cloth from the pocket of his long trench coat, a clothing accessory which was necessary in the gloomy weather of this city. Jackal didn’t remember much from his hometown, except the blazing sun, something rarely seen in this stinking, vile city.

As he finished the prayer, Jackal pulled out the knife from the man’s chest, watching the blood and muscle ooze down the blade for a few seconds, before neatly encompassing the knife in the dirty, rust-red cloth. The cloth was covered in previous blood stains, but it was not entirely red. Through the cloth, you could see glimmers of its former white colour and where Jackal preferred to wipe his blade on previous occasions, judging by where the rusty red was darkest.

Was his mother still alive, she would have wanted to wash it, with admonitions of it catching germs and he carrying around a way to kill himself in his pocket. But his mother was long dead and Jackal had become part of this city and its customs.

He still remembered the first day that he’d met Yukimura with clarity. They’d been lined up like military troops in a small, shabby warehouse somewhere, empty of everything but a few boxes that lined the walls. The sun had been out that day and had trickled through the cracks in the windows and the walls, and in front of the puffed out chests and neat new clothing of the recruits, Yukimura had walked, looking deceptively fragile.

He’d held out a long strip of white cloth to every new recruit, with a brittle smile. He’d said, and Jackal remembered the words almost ten years later, as clear as a bell: “We are not mindless killers. We are no angels, but we are not mindless killers. When you work for me, you work for darkness, but darkness is not always evil.”

He’d told them all to look at their cloths, with his voice clipped and when not everyone had immediately obeyed, his glare would have frozen ice. “This cloth is your soul. With every kill, you will wipe their blood into this cloth, a physical representation of the stain of murder upon your eternal soul. If you shoot them instead of stabbing them, mop up their blood with this cloth. Never wash it, never leave it behind and never forget the people you have killed. When you forget their names, that is when you truly become a monster. And we, my friends, are better than that.”

He’d said those words, to a bunch of street-ruffians, who’d stolen and killed and scrounged and lied and cheated to get where they were today, as if he had faith in them and their abilities. It was the sheer incredulity that caused Jackal to be the first to accept the cloth, by folding it into his coat.

The stain of murder affected them all differently and so, each person treated their cloth differently. Some like Niou, wore their cloths brazenly on display, so drenched with red and brown that Jackal wondered whether they really _truly_ remembered every single person who had died. Some like Kirihara, hid their cloths deeply within their clothes, pressed against their chest, so that no one else would see how many people they had killed.

Jackal was more of an inbetween. He neither displayed his cloth brazenly, but he always kept it in his pocket, where it was easily accessible and practical, and some days when he was in a hurry, it was visible, but not to the point where it acted as an intimidator.

The people of the city were scared enough of the criminals in black and red.

There was a slight rustle above Jackal and he whirled around, narrowing his eyes as he glanced up the grimy wall of the alleyway, which reached so high that the grey sky was just a small rectangle above his bald head. Some electrical wires and laundry wires were trembling, despite the lack of breeze in the alleyway and Jackal quickly whirled around to glance at the dead body, and relaxed marginally upon seeing Niou examining the body, with a slight frown on his thin, pointed face.

Speak of the devil and he would appear. Niou certainly dressed enough like the stereotypical devil, in his neon-red plastic coat, and his deep blood-red leather boots. Where most of the criminal world preferred to dressed subtly, in generally black with a red highlight; Niou dressed in bold red, with only the black streak in his bleached hair and his black trousers representative of the colour of death.

“How are you, Niou?” asked Jackal, as he tucked his knife away and stuffed his cloth into his coat pocket

“Fine fine.” said Niou, as he bounced up from where he’d been crouching in front of the body. “You’re aware that I’ve been tracking him for the past twenty hours and you got him within ten minutes of looking for him?” he demanded, with a definite pout on his face.

Jackal laughed heartily, as he adjusted his coat. “Guess I got lucky, then. What’d you want him for?” While Jackal dealt with the scum that usually spent time at the port, Niou’s main area was around the inner working of the city, amongst the innermost cesspools of humanity’s despair. Jackal didn’t know how Niou and Yanagi did it, honestly, but they seemed to enjoy working in such conditions.

“Cheated some prostitutes out of their money after slapping them around and treating them badly. I don’t tolerate anyone treating the gals wrong. It’s not like they asked to do this job.” said Niou, with a slight shrug, as he flicked his bleached rat-tail behind him, and kicked the lug’s body towards the dumpster.

“Heh, real luck then.” said Jackal, with a slight laugh.

“What, that he’s dead?” asked Niou. “Yeah, fucker really deserved it if he was on both of our lists.”

“Well that.” admitted Jackal, as he walked away from the body and back towards where his motorcycle had been. “But he was lucky that I found him before you did. I was much quicker than you would have been.” Niou was known for having just a little sadistic streak of playing with prey before he killed it. Jackal, having never actually worked with Niou, didn’t know whether that was true, but since Marui had always assumed it was, so did Jackal.

Niou smirked, coldly. “Course.” he said, with a slight shrug. “They deserve thrice the pain they inflict on the poor bastards they target.”

That was one way to look at it. Jackal just shrugged, as he walked over to where his slightly shabby motorcycle was parked. A couple of street kids were seated around the motorcycle, watching it like Jackal had asked. He was sure that if he’d been anyone else, they would have attacked him and stolen the bike, but being part of the most intimidating crime ring had some perks, he supposed. “I’m sure they do, but that’s for God to decide, isn’t it?”

“You don’t really still believe in a God after living here, do ya Jackal?” asked Niou, as he leant on the handlebars of the motorbike as Jackal checked the gas.

“If there is a god, he doesn’t care about the living. He’s always loved the dead a little more. He’ll deal with the dead as they need to be dealt with.” said Jackal, with a dry laugh, as he pulled the helmet over his head and pulled at the straps to adjust it.

“And we’re all hellbound, then?” asked Niou, with a wry smile.

“Of course we are.” said Jackal, with a light snort. “Our souls are too stained for anything less.” he said, his eyes pointedly going to Niou’s cloth, with was tied loosely around Niou’s coat. It did not look like it had ever been white, not like Jackal’s.

With a slightly dark chuckle, Niou pulled himself away from the handlebars. “Right you are, Jackal. Send Yags my best and tell him to not hide away in his chem labs, or he’ll become worse of a druggie than the people here.”

Jackal swung his legs over the motorcyle, as he kicked the monstrous thing into a coughing, spluttering start. The exhaust trailed upwards, towards the smog-filled sky. “Bit late for that, you better visit yourself and drag him out yourself.” said Jackal, with a grin, as he tipped the glass visor over his face and drove out of the crowded streets.

The cloth in his pocket was already dry by now, but it felt heavier, with the weight of yet another soul there. “Kuuchi Fuuda.” said Jackal, softly, as he started to memorize the name of the hefty man who’d taken too much and given too little.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Jackal. That is all.


End file.
